Ripple Effect, A Salver of Hope
by Alveric
Summary: Sam's husband, the father of her unborn child, is stuck in an alternate reality with the very real possibility he might never make it home. She's not about to let an entire universe keep her from him. Side-story to 'The Times That Weren't' etc. Cam/Sam


Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I am only playing in the world

A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. Please enjoy this little peek into another alternate reality

**Ripple Effect – A Salver of Hope**

Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)

"He's my husband, Jack!" she cried as she slapped the top of his desk from her seat across from him. Her eyes were glittering fiercely, half in anger, half with tears which simply would not fall. Jack watched her silently for a moment until she closed her eyes and took in a shuddering breath, letting it out in a pained sigh. He stood up and walked around the desk, closing the door between his office and the briefing room, where several scientists and engineers were looking their way in alarm. He passed his hand along her shoulder as he walked back towards his seat and sat down. She looked up at him apologetically, shaking her head slightly. "I'm sorry, sir. I just..." It was his turn to shake his head in understanding. "I need him." she breathed painfully as her hands moved unconsciously over the swell of her belly. "I can't do this without..." She hung her head again with a grimace before looking up again, her eyes aflame. "I can help them, I can get them back!" Jack shook his head resolutely.

"That's not gonna happen, Carter." he said softly. "They have sixteen of you workin' on the problem already. And we cannot afford to lose you if they fail." She clenched her jaw and growled in anger and frustration. "We're in deep enough as it is." he whispered as he leaned back in his chair. Jack had changed so much since being appointed head of the SGC. Much of it after the Ori had come. "There's no way I'm letting you go through that 'gate if there's even the slightest chance you won't come back." She stood up slowly and he followed suit, walking around to help her, she accepted his aid even as she glared at him balefully. "That's my godchild after all." he joked. She gave him a slap on the arm as they walked towards the briefing room. He opened the door for her and she stepped out, knowing she had to get back to work, to do whatever she could. She stopped on the threshold and turned back to him.

"Jack, if they give up... if they decide they're not going to be able to send them back... I'm _going_ to go be with my husband. Do you understand?" Her voice was cold, low and dangerous. He'd never heard Sam talking like that. He couldn't reply before she just turned around and glared at all the men and women she'd assembled to try and support the efforts being made to rescue her husband and her team. They weren't even trapped somewhere dangerous. Just somewhere unreachable, the fact it was a different reality altogether barely fazed him anymore. Such things were old hat to him now. He turned back into his office and tried to figure out a way he could stop Sam from escaping through the Stargate if he had to. He wasn't really confident of his chances.

* * *

"Colonel Carter?" whispered a gentle voice from the edge of the darkness. Sam blinked her eyes open in the half-light of the empty, darkened briefing room and groaned softly. "You really should not be here. You should be sleeping in a bed." The voice's tone had switched from gentle to reproving and annoyed so quickly it could only belong to a doctor. She looked up upon the soft, southeast asian features and olive skin of a very attractive young woman, her hair pinned up at the back of her head in a severe albeit alluring style. She glanced down and smiled wryly when she spotted the white overcoat which confirmed her suspicions. "Whoever let you stay here this long is going to get an earful, I can tell you. Right after I give you one." Sam chuckled as the younger woman turned her glare on her full force.

"We haven't met I don't think." Sam said with a yawn as she stretched her arms up over her head. She leaned back in the chair she was sitting in and glanced down at the file folders on the briefing table she'd just been using as a pillow. The doctor clucked her tongue and stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat.

"That would be because you've missed three of your infirmary appointments already, Colonel." replied the annoyed physician. "I'm Doctor Lam, Carolyn Lam. I came here from the CDC to help. Though while Dr. Fraiser is... off-world... I've been filling in for her as well." She unconsciously glanced out the long observation window behind them and looked at the Stargate standing in the low lighting of the night shift. Sam grimaced at the reminder that not only was her husband trapped, but so were all her best friends.

"Well, I've been a little busy, Doctor." Sam groused while reaching for the glass of water closer to the center of the table. She grumbled again for the umpteenth time at the injustice of not being allowed any coffee.

"I understand that, Colonel. I really do, but tell me one thing," she paused and squared herself next to Sam until the blond looked up in curiosity, "what am I going to tell Janet when she comes back and finds out I couldn't get you to take care of your little one?" Sam's jaw clenched and she glared at the woman, she was about to explode at her when Carolyn just tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. The angry invectives died instantly on Sam's lips as she looked down. She wasn't angry at the younger woman, she wasn't angry at herself either, she wasn't even angry at the unfeeling universe. She covered her face in her hands and leaned her elbows on the table. "Come on, Colonel, I'll take you to your quarters and you have to promise me you'll come see me first thing in the morning." Sam stood with the younger woman's help and allowed her to lead her away from the briefing room.

"Call me Sam." she whispered as they walked out into the corridor.

"Only if you call me Carolyn." replied the petite brunette with a soft smile.

* * *

Siler walked around the corner to see Sam coming from a door further along the corridor carrying a hefty looking box. Now if Sylvester Siler was one thing, he was a gentleman, and he couldn't let a pregnant woman carry something so obviously awkward. He trotted over and called out.

"Colonel, do you need a hand?" Sam stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly with a bright smile on her face.

"Sly! Sure, that would be great." She handed the box to him and he glanced at it, seeing a lot of file folders piled haphazardly at the top. "I was just taking these papers to my lab so I could look them over in peace. The briefing room is making me a bit..." She blew air through her pursed lips, setting her fringe aflutter and let out a frustrated groan.

"I understand, ma'am. We're all tense and hoping for the best." Siler replied softly and Sam looked over at him with a smile as she walked slowly up to the elevator and got in when it arrived. He was very fond of Colonel Carter, of the whole of SG-1 really. He was just a tech, but they treated him and the rest of the base support staff like a part of their team and he noticed that. They all did. And it wasn't just the work they did together either. Siler had helped Colonel Carter rebuild her '47 Indian Chief after all. Off-hours projects such as those were one of the highlights of his time serving at this command. One thing Sylvester would never forget was that he'd been invited to the wedding. When Colonel Carter had bustled up to him with that smile on her face and eagerly pressed the envelope into his hands it had brought a lump to his throat. To know he was so valued, considered as a friend by two of the most amazing officers he'd ever had the privilege of working with, was indescribable. "I'm sure you'll see him again, ma'am." She glanced at him as they got out on sublevel 19 and walked to her lab.

"I'm sure too, Master Sergeant." she replied in a low voice as she turned her head to gaze down the corridor again with a distant look. He let a small sigh escape his lips as he walked along and looked at the box again. He wondered what sort of papers she had managed to find in the alien tech research labs that could help with the problem.

* * *

The chevrons on the Stargate began lighting up one by one as the inner track spun around in alternating directions. The klaxxons were silent though the warning lights were flashing away. This was a scheduled activation after all. Walter looked up to see General O'Neill waiting impatiently for the wormhole to form. He'd been here like clockwork every twelve hours for each status update from P3R-981, the forest planet they were using as a relay between them and P4X-156. Walter had a bad feeling. He glanced back down at the monitor in front of him and pushed his glasses back up his nose. The kawoosh erupted from the center of the Stargate and settled back into the event horizon and his display lit up immediately.

"Receiving incoming video transmission, General." Walter intoned while his fingers were dancing over the keyboard, anticipating the order he was about to receive.

"Put it up, Walter." O'Neill muttered and looked up at one of the screens overhead.

"Stargate Command, this is Major Lawrence, do you read?" came the voice of SG-21's leader. His face over the video was all Walter needed to see to know his bad feeling was right on the money.

"Lawrence, this is O'Neill, we read you. Any news?" O'Neill shifted, putting a hand on the back of Walter's chair and leaning over to the side of him, having decided to look at the video from Walter's monitor instead of craning his neck.

"Bad news, sir." Lawrence took off his patrol cap and scrubbed at his hair nervously before glancing down at the piece of paper in his hands. "We have a new status update from the alternate SGC via SG-15 on P4X-156. Message reads: We are unable to formulate acceptable solution which would allow return of stranded teams. The only solution we have determined is to seal the rupture to prevent further teams being trapped. Prometheus dispatched eleven hours ago with orders to close the rupture, ETA to destination, two hours. We're sorry. Message ends." O'Neill grimaced and acknowledged the message.

"Understood, Major. Stay on station for one more status update. If the next time SG-15 dial Earth they get us? Well... we'll call you. Stargate Command out." He straightened up and looked away with a dark look.

"Yes, sir. SG-21 out." the Major looked off screen and nodded and the video cut off, followed moments later by the wormhole itself. Walter looked over to the General and watched him cautiously, wondering how he was going to break the news to Colonel Carter. She would be devastated. He was surprised to see his commanding officer pull a radio from his pocket and bring it up to his mouth.

"Captain Weyland, this is O'Neill, come in." he said softly and Walter's eyebrows shot up, wondering why the head of base security was being called.

"General, this is Weyland, I read you." came the equally soft reply.

"Please secure Colonel Carter in her quarters. Be gentle." O'Neill ordered and Walter's eyebrows nearly crawled into his hair. General O'Neill was already moving towards the corridor, no doubt heading for the elevators. Walter turned around in his seat wondering what the General was thinking.

* * *

Sam was looking at her laptop, typing away furiously, when two SFs appeared in the doorway to her lab. She sighed though her gaze never left the screen.

"Colonel Carter, ma'am. If you would kindly come with us, we have orders to take you to your quarters." intoned the Corporal who took a step forward. She chuckled mirthlessly, again without glancing up from the screen, still typing away.

"Jack, Jack, Jack... Did you really think you could stop me with two SFs?" she muttered and pulled an Intar from under the table, the red crystal at the base of the grip glowing softly. The SFs immediately reached for their weapons and crouched down in a ready stance.

"Ma'am, put the weapon down. We do not want to make this hard for you." She chuckled bitterly and stood up, pressing her finger down on the keyboard. She closed the laptop's lid and picked it up. She stepped aside only to vanish right before the eyes of the stunned security personnel. They blinked and looked up as sirens began to wail and massive steel doors at either end of the corridor began coming down. To say they were surprised to be shot from behind by a very pregnant Colonel Carter as she appeared in the doorway of her lab would be an understatement. She glanced down at the two airmen and walked inside, re-holstering the Intar at the leg of her desert camo BDUs. She put her laptop down on her table then walked back to the door, grabbed the desert camo jacket from a hook on the back of it and shrugged it on over her sand coloured shirt. She then picked up the tac vest which had been hidden underneath it and shrugged that on too. She went back to her table and picked up a back pack which she shouldered awkwardly, took up her laptop again and walked out the door, ambling down to the first security door. She propped up the computer on a steel riveted seam to open the lid and check the display.

* * *

"Walter? What the Hell is going on?" Jack cried rushing up the small flight of stairs from the access corridor, he hadn't been gone long as he had been cut off from the elevators. Chief Master Sergeant Harriman looked up from his computer screen and shrugged helplessly at him even as the blast shield in between him and the 'gate room finished coming down.

"I don't know, sir. All our access codes have been locked out, security doors all throughout the base have closed and communications have gone down." The base's senior non-com recited. Jack frowned. A small light flashed on a side monitor and Walter rolled his chair over to it. Jack followed him and looked down. "One of the security doors has come up, and another beyond it."

"Where?" Jack demanded.

"Um, that's corridor nineteen delta four." he replied. Jack cursed, that was right outside Carter's lab. "Delta three, delta two..." He paused while another light flashed and then another. "Delta one... The elevator has unlocked, sir." Jack lifted the radio to his lips.

"Weyland? Why is a very pregnant woman systematically making her way to my 'gate room when she's supposed to be in her quarters resting?" He turned to look down at Walter. "Lock out the dialling computer, Chief. Do it now." Walter turned in a daze to look down at the monitor and watched as the elevator stopped on sublevel 28. He glanced over at his regular station and wheeled his chair over again.

"I don't know, sir. The team I sent has not reported in." came the tense reply over the radio. Jack glared at it as if the Captain could see him.

"How many men?" he asked while he came to stand behind Walter as he tapped ineffectually at his keyboard, the non-com shrugged his shoulders and looked up at him nervously.

"Two, sir." replied Weyland. Jack scoffed.

"Captain, if you would be so kind as to check my armoury and tell me what's missing, _thank you._" He held a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

"General, there's a break in the pattern of security doors." Walter called from the other station and Jack looked over in irritation.

"What do you mean, Walter?" He walked over and glanced at the monitor, seeing a door opening on a side corridor from the next section, a corridor which led away from the 'gate room.

"Wait, the door _is_ opening, and closing again." Walter said in confusion.

"General O'Neill, I'm cut off from the armoury, but I have a man there." Weyland called over the radio. "We're missing one set of desert issue tactical gear, an Intar and two boxes of ammunition, four smoke grenades, one set of breathing equipment-" Jack cursed, interrupting the Captain, and pointed at the monitor as the security door on the side corridor began to close and the correct door in the sequence began to open again.

"She's smoking out some folks who were in the corridor." he groused and froze at the distinctive sound of the Stargate dialling from behind the blast doors in front of him. "Walter!" he cried in warning and the Sergeant rolled back to his regular station _again_.

"The 'gate is auto-dialling P2W-512, sir, I can't stop it!" he cried. Jack cursed and closed his eyes, waiting for the moment of the kawoosh. They were both surprised when the blast doors started rising to reveal Sam looking at them over her shoulder from the bottom of the ramp, the mask of her breathing equipment hanging down from her neck. The wormhole's unstable vortex filled their view a moment later after the final chevron locked.

"I told you, Jack. I'm going to be with my husband." she growled in a low voice before turning away and walking slowly towards the active Stargate. Jack leaned forward and stabbed down at the button on the mic which piped in to the 'gate room.

"Stand down, Carter!" he ordered. She didn't look back. "Sam!" he cried desperately as she disappeared into the event horizon. The wormhole disengaged and suddenly everything around them went dark. Loud metallic clunks sounding from deeper in the complex signalled the tripping of all the main power junctions. They were left in dead silence when all the whirring fans from the masses of computer equipment in the room finally ground to a halt. "Walter, do you have a cell phone?"

* * *

P4X-156, January 2006 (alternate reality)

Major James Webster was slightly surprised when the Stargate activated, they had been camping out on the desert planet for the last several days and not once had it actually activated while they were there. They were always the one dialling the alternate SGC and then dialling P3R-981 to relay any message. He was even more surprised when Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter came out of the 'gate, surprised enough that he and his team lowered their weapons in the face of their very pregnant superior officer. However, he was most surprised when she pulled out an Intar and shot them all without breaking stride.

* * *

Sam finished binding the wrists of the members of SG-15 and made sure they were tied up securely under the shade of their shelter and sat on her haunches to get her breath back. She supposed she had to make allowances for being pregnant. She scrubbed the back of her sleeve across her forehead and got back up slowly, holding her back and wincing. She walked towards the DHD and began dialling Earth. There was no time to waste. When the wormhole was established she raised a hand to her radio and pressed down the button.

"Stargate Command, this is Colonel Carter from alternate reality designation P4X-156, do you read?" She walked around the back of the DHD and leaned against it heavily.

"Colonel Carter 156, this is Stargate Command, we read you. General Landry will be here momentarily, ma'am." She smiled in relief at hearing Walter's voice. They hadn't yet collapsed the rupture.

"Thank you, Walter." she burbled.

"Colonel Carter, this is Landry, we were not expecting another communication from-" she couldn't handle hearing whatever it was he was going to tell her under the misapprehension she was trying to stop him.

"With all due respect, General Landry, I'm not here to try and convince you to stop your plans." she interjected.

"Colonel-"

"I'm here to ask you to let me come through." she carried on over his attempt at an interruption.

"Car-"

"I'll beg if I have to. You have my husband there and I need to be with him." She raised a hand to her mouth as her eyes began to sting.

"Carter-"

"You have to understand, sir, I'm pregnant and I can't raise this baby without a father." she said in an increasingly broken voice. There was a protracted pause in the radio transmission before Landry began speaking again.

"Sa-"

"So you have to let me through, General, you can't leave me without the love of my life and the father of my child. I can't live without him, sir." the tears were flowing now as she held a hand over her eyes.

"SAM!" she blinked in surprise at the familiar voice from the other end of the radio link.

"Cameron?" she breathed disbelievingly. "I've missed hearing your voice." she murmured as her brows tightened and the tears began flowing anew. She smiled at his chuckle.

"I've missed you too, sweetness, you have no idea." he burbled over the radio and she snorted.

"As if. There are sixteen Sams over there, you're probably seeing mes every time you go around a corner." she muttered in derision.

"Hey!" he cried and she could tell exactly which glare he was throwing at the microphone by the tone of his voice, she smiled ruefully. "None of them are you, Sam. _None_ of them are _my_ Sam." he breathed and she felt her heart swelling up with joy.

"Cameron, you have to get General Landry to let me come through. I can't do this without you, sweetie." she pleaded.

"You don't have to come through, darlin', they've figured it all out." She was stunned into silence, unable to speak for several moments.

"What?"

"As I've been trying to tell you, Colonel," Landry began gruffly, "we received a subspace communication from our SG-1 less than twenty minutes ago. The operation to seal the rupture has been aborted." She gave a little gasp as her knees buckled and she landed heavily on her backside at the foot of the DHD. She leaned against the back of it and raised both hands to cover her mouth as tears of relief began flowing.

"Baby? Are you okay?" came Cam's worried voice in response to her sobs. She shook her head as her shoulders slumped.

"Come home, Cam. Come home." she breathed softly into her radio.

"I will, Sam. As soon as I can." he promised.

"It will be a few hours yet, Colonel. We're waiting for Prometheus to return, we're expecting them in about eight hours." Landry said with a clear note of amused indulgence in his voice. "Is there anything else we can do for you?" She covered her eyes with shaking fingers for a moment before she replied in the negative. "Well then, next time, don't call us, we'll call you. You have my word on that." Sam laughed manically for a moment before she clamped a hand over her mouth.

"See you soon, honey." murmured her love.

"Yes. Please. Soon." she breathed through her fingers.

"Until then, Colonel, Stargate Command out." Landry signed off and the wormhole disengaged and Sam couldn't help laughing out loud hysterically for several minutes as the relief washed over her in great waves.

* * *

As soon as Cameron stepped out of the wormhole he found arms wrapped around his neck and lips clamped tightly on his. He felt her and the swell of her belly pressed against him and only Daniel pushing him from behind with an amused smirk on his face spared him from falling down on his backside with Sam on top of him. Janet and Martouf followed behind him and the petite doctor burst out into laughter at the sight that greeted her. She handed over the yellow case she was carrying, quite possibly the most important object in the galaxy at that particular moment, to the highly amused Tok'ra beside her.

"Baby... wait... please..." he tried to get her attention in between insistent kisses, but eventually just surrendered to his wife's demands. It's not as if he _didn't want_ to kiss her senseless.

"If you would kindly let go of my patient, Colonel Mitchell." demanded a chuckling Janet from behind Sam as she took hold of the other woman's shoulders. "Sam, it's really good to see you, but you're a pregnant woman in the middle of a desert, so how about you come over to the shade for a minute and let me check you out." Sam was still kissing a no longer protesting Cameron and didn't seem to hear her friend's admonition.

"Um, why is SG-15 tied up over there?" asked Daniel from the bottom of the Stargate's steps. Cameron frowned slightly against his wife's lips as he heard his friend's voice and managed to pull back to get a look while Sam looked over her shoulder and bit her lower lip.

"Sam?" He asked in a tone filled with warning when she turned to face him and gave him a sheepish smile while still biting her lip.

"Um, I might be in a little bit of trouble."


End file.
